Japan’s Aomori Prefecture might be at the same latitude as New York, but its climate can seem a lot more harsh. Nestled at the northernmost part of the country’s Honshu Island, the average yearly snowfall there is around 34 ft. This March alone however, the area was buried in record snows of up to a staggering 16 ft. Photographer James Whitlow Delano captured the eerie calm that descended on the area, one populated heavily by the elderly.